The Button Corkscrew: A Helix That Grips and a Disc That Stops It

A cork is squeezed into a bottle neck so hard that pulling it out by a simple worm takes a strong arm — and a worm driven too far pierces the cork and pushes crumbs into the wine. Samuel Henshall, an English clergyman, took out British patent No. 2061 on 24 August 1795 for a corkscrew with a button: a concave disc fixed between the worm and the shank. The button stops the worm once it is deep enough, and turning on past that point twists the whole cork in the neck, breaking its hold on the glass before it is pulled. Matthew Boulton's works in Birmingham made it. This rung works out the worm's turns and grip and the force a pull needs, and makes and tests a button corkscrew.